First, I think it's worth repeating that in my opinion people don't usually post that they don't have sides. Some still do, but I don't think we can call this an accurate representation (I'll explain below). Much along the same line of thinking, I think most people that have good results from whatever they are using don't keep posting...after all, why would they? I've even read a few posts here from folks that have had good results mentioning that they don't think about their hairloss much anymore and don't post about it. I don't think that seems to unusual, I probably wouldn't stick around either.
Unlike posting reviews about electronics or other happy things: No one wants to think about hairloss, it's not a very fun topic. To many it can be embarassing and looked at as a disease, disorder, or sign of aging. Many people want to hide the fact that they are balding, and many don't want to admit they even have a problem (example: combover). People just want the problem gone, and once it's gone they don't want to think about it anymore.
Now with that being said, it's very easy to assume that all posters here (and on other hair loss forums) are a complete cross section of people that are taking Propecia/Proscar/finasteride, when it simply cannot be the case. Reading that more than 2% of people that post here have sides from finasteride is really misleading, and in my opinion shouldn't be considered accurate on any level.
Really, when we consider people posting about their hairloss and/or side effects we have to understand the group of people that are posting, and take a few things into consideration. We can assume that people visiting have a hair loss problem, but let's go further:
1. The people posting all have computers, or have good access to them. This is pretty obvious, but I think it's safe to say that not all finasteride users even own or use a computer, and even of those that do they may only use it for email or looking at pictures of their grandkids (for example). Hairloss can effect the young, but the older you are the more likely you are to suffer from it, and the older you are the more likely you are to not as "computer savvy" (opinion, but not much of a leap I think). So for openers we may be excluding a good chunk of people.
2. The people posting obviously visit forums, not only read but post as well. Many computer owners (including many people I know) don't visit forums, and if they do they don't post in them. So there may be another chunk of people left out (and so on and so on...).
This is the big one, stay with me here:
3. The people posting have a reason to post, and/or a reason to seek out a forum, and quite possibly a reason to seek out additional information. A very large percentage of people using Propecia have it prescribed by a doctor, purchased from a pharmacy in their local area, and never have any part of the process take place over the internet. The doctor provides information, treatment options and a prescription, the local pharmacy provides the drug. Now, people posting here and elsewhere may also include people as I described, but I would be led to believe that people coming to this forum come here for information, and a good number of people come to either find out information regarding other treatments because they already had side effects from finasteride and want to try something else, or are already having side effects and want to find out more about them.
Following this line of thinking: Not having side effects or other problems would give a person less reason to seek out other options, less reason to see what others sides might be, etc...in short, less of a reason to go to a forum and less of a reason to post in this or any other forum regarding hair loss. I don't think that is too far of a leap in logic. One also might go as far as reading a forum to find some information, but never post as they never experience problems. Or one might post to seek advice in treatment, then the treatment works and they never post again. Now on the opposite side of that coin, if I took took a drug that gave me some sort of side effect, I would definitely seek out information, and quite possibly post in a forum about my issue.
There are quite a few other qualifiers like those I listed above, but that is enough to give a general idea as to why the members here may not be a decent sample group of people that use Propecia/finasteride, and nowhere near as accurate a sample as doing an actual drug trial.
What I'm trying to get at here, is that finding and posting in a forum takes some sort of effort. Effort that just isn't applied by the average person if they arn't having sides and don't have much of a reason to go through the process of finding a forum, registering, creating a username, providing an email address, and finally posting.
So ask yourself: Who is more likely to expend that effort, the person that has no sides registering just so they can post that all is well...or the person that has side effects and needs futher information?
